Korea Day 2 a Temple and the most amazing store ever

On day 2 we were mostly exhausted from our run of super tourism, so when we eventually got out of bed and got moving we slowly made our way to the Changdeok Palace, our hearts weren't really in it. We looked around we saw the sites, but it didn't really matter. At this point we've seen a lot of asian temples and palaces and aren't easily impressed. It's not changdeok's fault, it's in a beautiful city, and it has great architecture, we're just kind of over it, or at least we were on the day that we were there. I can speak pretty highly of the takeout fare at the deli at the JW Marriott though. That was how we started with lunch, and the wine selection was really impressive. They even had some Clos Du Val, which is on the standard Napa tour that we give people who come to visit us here. We wandered about changdeok for a while, and then made our way over to the Namdaemun Market. We wandered it for quite a while eventually finding a cheap purveyor of prescription glasses where we bought me 2 new pairs, that were finished in the time it took us to shop and have a leisurely coffee. At some point we managed to aimlessly wander our way into a Shinsegea, which might be the coolest shopping experience ever. Down int the basement there's a grocery store that was at least as nice as having 2 whole foods in the basement of the building, bu they had far more interesting stuff than any store you've ever been in. It as a magical miracle wonderland of foods, prepared and raw, that just happens to be below a multi-story department store. We never even looked a the other stuff to buy, but went up to an upper floor where the restaurants were. There were so many, and they all have plastic model food, so you can see a scaled up model of what you'll eventually eat. We chose a Korean food restaurant and really, really enjoyed. Afterward we found the night market where we wandered for quite a while looking at the hundreds of makeup and skincare shops, and checking out the occasional bit of interesting street food. Late in the evening we found a little outside food place where they had a Korean pancake, so we stopped in to check it out. It was as if we were the first non Koreans to eat there, because our presence again created a little bit of a stir, but who are we not to try a pancake someplace. We made it back to the hotel once again for our customary sapphire and tonic. and crashed one more time.

Vietnam Day 10, Flying Solo

W woke up on day 10 not feeling very awesome, so I took one for the team and decided to go solo on our tour for the day. I'd paid for it, and after 10 days of spending every minute together who wouldn't like a little peace and quiet. On the docket for me: a trip to the Cu chi Tunnel complex , and and a stop at the Cao Dai Holy See. We started with a good solid drive out to the Cao Dai holy see, a place and religion that even for the purpose of this writing, I don't fully understand. All I took home from my visit was that their building is pretty spectacular, the all seeing eye is important, and Victor Hugo is one of the three important saints. We watched part of the mass, which was mostly singing, praying and drum and gong playing, while wearing brightly colored robes and hats. It was a cool thing to watch, but I found it difficult to get much out of the experience, while trying to talk about it enough so as not to disturb what was happening. After that my guide for the day took me to the designated tourist hole for lunch. This was by far the worst meal I ate on the trip, and I spent most of the time thinking I was glad I hadn't dragged W with me. After that we were off to the Cu Chi Complex. You start with a movie in the language of your choice that tells you about how the noble Vietnamese lived in the tunnels fighting off the evil imperialist Americans with their vastly superior weapons to maintain their independence. Being on the wrong side of history kind of sucks. You get to see some of the improvised weapons and traps made from whatever was available, and you get a sense for just how well the complex was hidden and how they managed to keep it that way. I spent some time crawling through one of the tunnels, and it was hard work. for a guy of my stature, and I wasn't carrying any fighting gear. A nasty Sarasota style thunderstorm blew through while we were there, and didn't seem all that interested in leaving, so I ended up kind of soaked for the ride back to Saigon. When I got back I found W and described my adventure, while she told me about her adventures getting a mani, and a shampoo, while I was out crawling through a tunnel and dodging lightning. I was almost a little jealous. For dinner that night we decided to try the Barbecue Garden, after having passed it several times in our travels. It was easily one of the best meals of the trip, and we had a lot of good meals. You cook your own stuff, on a gas powered cooking plate in the middle of your table, and the stuff was so good we'd eat what we had and order something else. the beef short ribs stuffed with cheese are something I'm going to have to try to figure out for myself. After dinner we wanted to go check out a recommendation from our favorite Aussie Paul, the Sheridan's Irish House. The directions we got there weren't spectacular, but when we did actually find it, it was worth the trip. It's a nice place to grab a real beer in a place where all the beers are lite on alcohol and flavor. After our beer we made our way back to our hotel for a night of rest before our last big day in Saigon.

Vietnam Day 9, Why you should respect vietnam vets

When we were planning this trip, a visit to the mekong delta sounded like a good idea. Floating villages, unspoiled vietnamese countryside, getting away from the city for a while. It all sounds great on paper. It actually looks a little different in the execution. A small bus came to pick us up at our hotel, and that ride turned really weird when two old British guys got on with two young vietnamese girls in tow. It's hard to ride along with people that you can't really make eye contact with. We got out of our small bus and got into an already mostly full bigger bus, and we couldn't even sit together. So that was lame, and it was pretty damn warm on the bus. I sat next to a nice young lady from Japan, who was wearing jeans and a sweater. So I'm sitting there sweating my behind off, and she's wrapped up like it's a foggy SF summer day. It's a long ride down to the Mekong, You stop at a big Buddhist temple, and then you get out, ride in a few boats of different sizes, check out some coconut candy making, check out some honey making and then get back on the bus for the really long ride back to HCMC. We ran into some traffic too, and didn't stop to go to the bathroom on the way back. Which made the ride hot, long ,boring and uncomfortable. When we got back to Saigon, we got a shower and decided to treat ourselves to the Buffet at the Renaissance Saigon. We stopped on the way at the Saigon Beutiful shop (104 Nam Ky Khoi Nghia st dist 1 HCMC) and found some really cool purse for W. After some shopping, then we made our way to the Renaissance. Yes it says the dress code is casual, but don't actually take their word for it, Most of the other guests are European, and dress smartly for casual occasions. You will probably be the only grown man wearing shorts. The seafood at the buffet is absolutely fantastic. They have lobster tails and shrimp and crabs and oysters and clams on ice, and when you walk up to them, someone asks you how you'd like them done. Grilled, steamed, steamed with lemon grass., thermidor are among the many options. Same for steaks that are just resting on the ice waiting for you. We were seated at a table near the front of the restaurant, right near where the wine was kept. Since it's all you can drink (more juice from Chile) our location near the wine holder meant that we were constantly being re-poured. We really liked our waiter, and when he'd come to ask if we wanted more I finally trained him to know the answer was always yes. I got my money's worth that's for sure. So the lesson for the day is that our boys who came to Vietnam and had to fight survived absolutely garbage conditions. It's a hard country to be a tourist in, and friendly people welcomed me at every turn, I can't imagine being there on hostile terms.

Vietnam Day 3 Cruising Halong Bay

We were up early for breakfast on day 3, since the bus for our Halong bay cruise was coming for us at 7. A tour guide came in and grabbed us from the hotel lobby and we jumped into a bus headed for Halong city. There were a few others on the bus with us, but none headed for the same boat we were. They drive for two hours, take a little break at a super touristy gift shop. then another hour or so to the docks. The bus dropped us off at the docks and we sat around kind of awkwardly for a while until someone gathered us up and, explained what the plan was and then put us on a little boat out to our junk, Indochina Junk's Dragon Pearl. The boat starts to cruise almost immediately and they sit you down for a welcome dring, check in, a briefing and then a really amazing 9 course lunch. The seafood was incredibly fresh and delicious, and it is well presented. We made fast friends with the other English speakers on the boat, including a really fun group of 6 from the land down under. We went on a short cave tour of the Thien Canh Son Cave and then took a really great little kayaking trip around some of the rock islands. It was the most relaxing and beautiful part of the trip. After Kayaking we spent some chill time on the beach watching the sunset, then headed back to the junk for drinks and dinner. Dinner was even more impressive with multiple courses, and detailed food sculptures. We stayed up for a long time drinking and chatting and then went to sleep in our really cute little cabin.

Vietnam Day 2 A long walk through Old Hanoi

We were up reasonably early for the Quoc Hoa hotel breakfast, and W was pumped that they had Chinese style congee. The breakfast was passable, and was included in our room rate, so you might as well eat up. We then took the walking tour of Hanoi Recommended by the Lonely Planet Vietnam. The streets are organized by what was originally sold on them, so blocks are often consecutive stores of shoes, or metalwork or purses or hand crafts. The streets are mostly narrow 2 lane roads that have "sidewalks", but there were usually so many motor scooters parked on them that walking on the sidewalk proved impossible. Most of the stuff you just wander by and look at, our first major stop was the Nhà Thò Chinh Toa, a really beautiful little cathedral in the middle of town. We made a long stop at the hilltop coffee, for a snack, a shot of caffeine, and some easy wifi access. We saw someone else order a fresh coconut that looked fantastic, so we tried one too. It was, in fact, just as delicious as it looked, a whole coconut cut open served with a straw and a spoon. Since we were close by, we detoured to the Hanoi Hilton, which was really a weird experience. You start in what's billed as the colonial French section where the French held dissenters and political prisoners and treated them horribly. Then you go into a vietnam war section where the righteous Vietnamese allegedly treated all american prisoners even-handedly and with dignity. Pictures of prisoners playing sports and enjoying themselves are displayed so you know just how well they were treated. Needless to say I didn't buy much of that narrative. But the fact that we faught a war against the vietnamese people with B52s and Agent orange and Napalm doesn't exactly make us real innocent in this either, it does, it turns out, take two to tango. Our side trip there got us really close to the office of our travel agent, so we decided to drop by and settle up with them so we could get on with the rest of our vacation. We learned at that point that street numbering in Vietnam can be really strange, as one side can count up really quickly, but the other side can drag well behind, so you could be in the 400 block on the even side but only in the 100 block on the odd side. Eventually a concierge at a hotel in the neighborhood was nice enough to walk with us until we found it, and after we paid we decided to go back to that hotel for lunch. We were rewarded with a fantastic view from the top floor restaurant of the flower hotel. It turned out to be a nice little find, where we had nice views of the city and some good food. We strolled around Hanoi for a while longer, eventually ending up near the lake. While there we bought a bootleg Vietnamese phrasebook for an intensely low price, met a nice Vietnamese couple, snapped some pictures. and continued our slow shopping journey around the city. We made a mid shift stop at the Gecko Bar and Restaurant ( the one on Luong Ngoc, since there are several places called gecko all over Vietnam), for a cheap beer. and a snack, along with gathering some more tourist information there. We liked the guy in charge, and on a future trip would consider their guiding services. We made a brief visit back to our hotel to freshen up before dinner out at the Com Ga Hoi an. (Hoi an Style Chicken Rice). They had a really great upstairs outdoor terrace that we ate on and really enjoyed the cooler night air and the relative peace of a night a few feet above the din of the streets of Hanoi. We retired a little early since we had to be up at a stupid early time in the morning the next day.

Disney Dayz: 2 and 3

The last 2 days in Orlando went pretty quickly. We had the opportunity to sleep late on Friday and took it, allowing for time for lunch at an Ale House and the delicious Zinger Melt contained therein. We got ourselves some tickets to Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party, which opened its gates at 4 so we had a little bit of the afternoon to kill first. We knew our dining plans included a reservation at Boma, so we wanted to try to ride the bus over there, and check the place out. The Animal Kingdom lodge is gorgeous, I would definitely consider staying there if I had $200/night just burning a whole in my pocket. We eventually caught another bus to the Magic Kingdom, where the daytime crowd was on it's way to the gate, and the night time crowd was just getting costumed up and in the park. We were Later met by L. and her mom (who is one of my favorite "friend's moms" of all time. If you're dying to go to the magic kingdom and hate waiting in lines, this is the way to go. They kick all the daytimers out, and make you repay to stay, so the number of people in the park is significantly reduced. We rode everything we wanted and never waited more than twenty minutes for anything. My last few years in Florida I'd been to the MK at least once a year for Night of Joy, and it was a completely different experience from that too. The Halloween parade is extremely cool and starts with a ride-through from a headless horseman. The fireworks are great too, we happened to be at the top of the Swiss Family Robinson tree house when they started. The tree house provides a great view for the show but since it's above the water can be a little mosquito-y. There are also trick or treating stations throughout the park, and they have really good candy! 'We shut the place down with a little shopping, then went back for crashy time once again.
On Saturday we got up for the early shift again and went directly to the boardwalk for breakfast with one of W's long lost friends Mark. We Ate at Kat Cora's restaurant Kozzina on the boardwalk. The Yelp reviews are mostly accurate here, the food is really good, but the service is remarkably "un-disney-like". We had a reservation for which we arrived promptly, but were asked to wait with a pager until a table was ready ~5-10 minutes. (We walked past plenty of empties on the way to our table). We got coffee in a carafe (thank goodness) and shortly placed our order. Our server brought our food, and disappeared until unceremoniously dumping the check on our table and saying no hurry on this. That would have been fine, had my french toast actually come with some syrup, or if we didn't need more cream for coffee. To be fair the food was really good, but wow, can bad service really change your perception of a meal. So W goes out to the front table and tells them about our experience, and they kind of just blew her off. Needless to say, I don't reccomend eating there, and it seems many Yelpers agree. I got better service at the barbecue place in animal kingdom, and I bussed my own table! After that we were off to Disney's hollywood studios. We waited in the 70 minute line for the toy story ride (totally worth it; is 10x more fun than the buzz lightyear ride). We took the Back lot tour, and W was an active participant. The 2 best part of our Hollywood Studios tour 1. the San Francisco backdrop, and 2. Drinks and Appetizers at the Brown Derby. Stop whatever you're doing, go there and have the champagne flight. Since the restaurant is built to be a see and be seen type of place, you'll see everybody around you watching your 3 glasses of champagne poured, and the Banfi Rosa Regale Brachetto is worth the price of admission alone. Tasting note here, red sparklers aren't for everyone, but if you like them you'll surely enjoy this. We eventually made it back to Epcot for one more round of Food and Wine this time we visited:
Japan again, the tuna sensation was just too good to pass up and paired it with a Kirin
Australia
Seared Barramundi with Blistered Cherry Tomatoes,Arugula, and Lemon Oil and Grilled Lamb Chop with Roasted Potato Salad and Red Wine Reduction
paired with Rosemount Traminer Riesling and Penfolds Koonunga Hill Shiraz Cabernet
Canadian Cheddar Cheese Soup paired with a moosehead beer
and at that point we cut ourselves off, knowing that a buffet for dinner was still on the horizon. We found a quiet place where W grabbed a little cat nap, and a little girl came by and pointed at W, and I could hear her mom say it's ok honey, she's just tired. At about the same time we were joined by a mixed marriage (Husband and oldest son wearing burnt orange and navy, Wife and youngest wearing crimson) and news of Alabama's loss to South Carolina was spreading at the same time. After a brief respite L's mom picked us up on the boardwalk, and off we went to Boma. Our service was a little slow. but not unreasonable, and I didn't meet a single thing on the buffet that wasn't fantastic. Even if you can't afford to stay at the Animal Kingdom Lodge, I recommend that you get yourself a reservation at Boma, it's fantastic. We went back to L's place for a little more wine, and then grabbed a quick nap before our 6 a.m. flight We got to the airport and home without incident. How many countries did we eat at? Tons, I'm glad we finally got that trip in, and we just might have to go back for the Disney Christmas Party.

Lots of reasons you should come visit

The most fun thing about living in the bay area is all the cool stuff we get to go do when people come visit us. This weekend we got a visit from one of W's sisters, and we moved all over town making sure she had a quality visit. So we started Friday night at the Bachhus wine making club, Where there was a delicious tasting going on. The concept was pretty cool, you buy by the half barrel, they bottle up your goods and put a customized label on it. The wines they have vary in quality and character, but there were some very good ones. After wine, we made our way to Berkeley and chowed down on some Zachary's Pizza. We elected for a half Caesar, and a large Deep dish with sun dried tomatoes and salami. As usual it was worth the trip. Saturday we got up early (by our standards of course) and made the drive up to Napa. On the way through we noted that there was a sonic in american canyon, that might warrant a stop on the way home. Our first stop was at Mumm Napa, the official wine of Jason and W. The tastings there are reasonably priced for wines that we knew we loved, so we picked up a few on the way out, and made our way to some lunch. Travel/Foodie friend Steve recommended that we eat at Cindy's Backstreet Kitchen. I started with a mojito, and W had what is quite possibly the best bloody mary in the universe. For lunch I had a seared ahi tuna salad, W had an amazin "Adult" grilled cheese sandwich with fig jam, and Mel had a really wonderful curry chicken. We sprung for dessert too, havina a strawberry crisp, pineapple upside down cake and this wonderful lemon cake a la mode that was just incredible. Next we were off to Clos Du Val, but since we'd seen them along the way, we stopped at Folie A deux, and the Cosentino Winery. We do really like Folie A Deux's Menage A Trois wine, but the tasting room was charging above retail for it, and their other wines were only average. W discovered Cosentino long ago while waiting for a table at nearby Mustard's, so we stopped in specifically to grab a couple of bottle of their "The Zin" wine, and try some of the other delicious wines they had available to sample. We moved next to Clos Du Val, which wins the prize for prettiest setting, and their wines are spectacular. They could sell wine that good from the back of a truck and it would still be great. We made a final move to the Vintner's Collective, and tried some really good wine there too, but by then the triple digit temperatures were starting to weigh pretty heavily on our tasting team, and we decided to skip our final planned stop and start working our way home. We stopped at that sonic on the way back to get some junk food, and a delicious cherry lime aide. Some time during my stop at sonic I managed to drop my wallet, and didn't realize it was missing until Sunday when I went to work, but I'll get back to that. We came home tired and had leftover zachary's for dinner and crashed pretty hard. For the record I was the DD, tasting a lot more wine than I drank.... safety first! W and Mel went shopping on Sunday back in Berkeley for an Item we needed for a special event coming up this weekend (details to come after Saturday) I was supposed to join them to come check out the international food festival, but I was busy looking around the house for my wallet. Finally I called the last place I remembered having it, the Sonic in American Canyon. Turns out they had it in their safe, just waiting for me to come back and get it. We had some time to kill before dinner, so we drove back up there to get it. It turns out some jerk lifted the $20 I had in there, and tossed it in the garbage. Fortunately a car hop was nice enough to rescue it and turn it in. So if you eat at the Sonic in American Canyon, California; Tip Big! they deserve it. We drove directly back to San Francisco to grab dinner at our must bring restaurant, Tomasso's. The wait for a table was 45 minutes, so we had time to go see one of our favorite wine maker's new ventures, the Vin Club. We've been a fan of Vin Nostro wines for a few years now, and are glad we have a new place to go drink them whenever we feel like it. We got back to Tomasso's and got seated at a booth! We really enjoyed our dinner and had their always wonderful tiramisou for dessert, and finally tried the creme brulee, which is just as good.
Monday we went for the final bay area delight, a burger from In N Out. I'm trying not to think about the number of calories we went through, but when visitors come we have to go all out. Stay tuned next week when we reveal the mystery item purchased someplace in Berkeley and why we need it.

Egypt Day 8 Returning to Land

We got them to give us a 9:00 check out on the boat, and slowly packed up all our junk and prepared for our departure. We'd been told what a cab ride should cost to the hotel and actually managed pretty easily to find 2 cabs and negotiate the correct rate. We were moving to the Pyramisa Isis Island Hotel. You have to take a boat to get there, and we rode over with our huge pile of luggage, and an Egypt Air flight crew. As soon as we set foot on the island we realized we'd made a serious error in judgment by not booking for more days. The hotel is gorgeous, and the service was really awesome there. We were most excited by the pool and swim up bar, but the weather never cooperated enough to make swimming a viable long term option. We had arranged with our new best friend Sayed to take us out for lunch, so after we got settled and enjoyed a drink outside we met sayed back on the mainland. He put us on another boat and off we went to the Dokka Nubian restaurant. I was still hoping this would be a little less touristy, but when you go inside there are long tables already set up, and you can tell who's going there, the big groups. That's ok though, because the food is actually worth the effort here it's cooked in a metal bowl and you can choose among fish beef or chicken cooked in an amazing tomato sauce. Of course your meal starts with the standard breads and dips, and they serve these really wonderful fruit drinks. When you go there, spring for the Nubian coctail; a mix of gauva, mango and strawberry juice. We ate until we were absolutely stuffed, and then saw a coffee making demonstration, so we could see how the delicious Turkish coffees we'd been drinking were handcrafted by Nubians. After gorging ourselves we planned on spending a full day at the pool. There was sunning and nap time and not a whole lot else going on for the rest of the day. We had to rest up, because we had a full agenda planned for the next day. Nobody else was hungry for dinner, so W and I had dinner outside on the patio (the mezze platter and some fish and chips) and crashed early. there was a 4 am wakeup call waiting for us the next morning.

Is Salaam 'Alaykum Egypt

I feel guilty that I haven't posted since the last trip, but let's face it, that's what you want to read about. Globe hopping makes for a far better read than everyday spreadsheet jockeying. That being said, let me tell you about on enormous adventure to Egypt and Jordan. You should know that getting things done with travel agents in Cairo is difficult, and we struggled mightily to get a Nile cruise set up. Cairo is 9 hours ahead of San Francisco, and things just move at a pace that's hard to be patient with. On the day we left, we at least knew we had a cruise to get on, and the rest of the stuff might just sort itself out as we went. We jumped on a SFO-LHR flight, and managed to score some business class seats, but unfortunately, no window for me. In London, we are working our way through a security check, right in the middle of a shift change. Half of our six person group got through without incident, and three others including me, got told our carry on bags would be too large to carry on. So we get shipped all the way out to check our bags, picking up a UK stamp in the passport for our troubles. Heathrow is notorious for losing bags, so it was with great nervousness that I passed off my bag and hoped for the best. At passport control, the officer says to me "Where you headed today"? "Cairo", I replied. He looks down at my passport, sees where I was born, and without flinching says: "That's a long way from Kansas!" I've been laughing about it ever since. We got a British Midland flight from London to Cairo, and were totally impressed by how good the service was. They nearly wore out the carpet going up and down the aisle with the drink cart. The food was nice for coach too, but sitting in the back of the plane on the aisle means lots of people heading to the lav. bump into you on their way through, making sleep far too difficult. We got to Cairo with no real way to get to the hotel, but a guy who sort of looked like he belonged in the airport (he had some sort of badge, but that means nothing) offered us a ride in a van for what didn't seem like a huge rip after I negotiated down a little. It's a long warm smoggy trip from the airport to the Cairo Marriott, which depending on who's driving can include a claustrophobia inducing tunnel. We arrived at the hotel and got our first taste of the security measures. Your vehicle stops outside gets sniffed by a dog and viewed carefully by someone looking underneath with a mirror. and then they let you in. There's a metal detector at every door, that if you're not Arab or it's daylight, no one seems to care whether you go through it or not. The Marriott is a huge complex that we had time to explore a little, finding where all the bars, restaurants and currency exchange were, and looking for a little something to help settle an uneasy stomach. Dave and I even managed to grab an Egyptian Beer(our first Sakkara of many) at the Irish Pub. Yes, you read that correctly Egyptian beer at an Irish pub, although to be fair, it is a Heineken product. For dinner we settled on the local Cuisine at Egyptian Nights. We started with the Mezze platters, There is a hot, and a cold, and ended up with what would have been enough for dinner on its own. There was Babaganough, Tabbouleh, Kofta, Calamari, Tahine, and the most delicious bread I've ever eaten. It's a flat bread, cooked on site, outside, in an oven that you walk by on the way in the door. It's amazing, and worth paying for a night at the Marriott just for this bread. The main dishes were also tasty, but unfortunately we were so full we couldn't even consider dessert. I did however enjoy my first Turkish coffee, which is a little like rocket fuel served in a demitasse, with a sprinkle of cinnamon and ground cardamom on top. After dinner we took the whole group down to the Irish pub to take part in their week long St Patty's day celebration. It was a nice makeup, since we'd spent all of the holiday on a plane. There was even an imported Irish band. At that point you could easily forget where on earth you were, and we felt a little guilty not experiencing any local culture at all, but we got over it eventually.

Bavaria Day 5, bumming around Munich

On our last day in town, If we did nothing else, we only wanted to do one thing for sure, and that was catch the glockenspiel. We slept in, did a little shopping at the Aldi, and then made our way down to the Marienplatz. We got there pretty early, so we had time to wander around the victualien markt. Picture the best farmers market you've ever been to with an amazing assortment of local and imported vegetables and fresh fish, cheeses and meats and all kinds of interesting stuff. We wandered back into Marienplatz just in time to grab watch the show and catch up with Dave. We grabbed some lunch at the Nordsee and then were ready to go hit the museum circuit. My original plan was to hit alte pinakotek and the the Deutsches Museum, but alas, I hadn't noticed that alte pinakotek is closed on Mondays. Good thing too, because we spent 4 hours in the Deutsches Museum and saw less than a quarter of it in any meaningful detail. The good news is most of it has descriptions of things in English and German. If I were you, I'd avoid the mining section unless you are fluent, because it is a really really really long section with very little translation. After the museum we stopped back in Marienplatz to do some shopping at the very insane Kaufhof. I'm not sure if it was the time we were there or what, but it was absolutely crazy busy, and the heat must have been turned up to 70 degrees. It made it hard to buy anything despite the fact they had much of the stuff we were looking for. It didn't help that I was lugging around a giant box full of Weihnachtspyramide. I had fallen in love with them on my first visit and had been pricing them out the entire trip, and had finally found the best prices from among the 3 seperate markets that I'd visited. After loading up on some more chocolate, we grabbed a train back to the hotel. I'm not sure how I always end up traveling during rush hour carrying a giant box, but I manage to do it about every other trip. We met back up with Dave and Kathy and wandered out to grab some dinner. Today was the big day to visit the Hofbrau. We had a wonderful dinner there and enjoyed the delicious beer (some of us a little too much) and then wandered back to the hotel. The flights on W's employer turned into garbage, so we ended up taking the mid day flight the next morning on a partner airline. I didn't love ther business class seat, it got almost flat, but was still at an angle that made you feel like you were constantly sliding out of it. They did give us a really cool lindt advent calender (mine wasn't quite this fancy, but close) that I enjoyed every day since then. Their entertainment was cool, and I even got to see the Knut the polar bear movie. It is definitely worth watching. Best part of the flight: the house gin is Bombay Saffire. The rest of the pictures are here, Enjoy!

Bavarian Winter Wonderland

Bavaria Day 4, Riding the Rails to Nurnberg

Another Early morning on our 4th day found us once agian on the DB headed for Nurnberg. Word association always leads me to Nurnberg trials, but it's reputed to have a really fabulous Christmas market, and we intended to go find out for sure. The Train drops you off a short distance from the Alstadt, and we took a brisk walk through town, trying to make it in time to see Nurnberg's Glockenspiel. We were bombarded with candy shops and Gluhwein and Nurnberger sausages and Lieb Kuchen along the way, and made it just in time to stare up into the huge clock tower to see it's slightly dissapointing clockworks. But it's one of the things you're supposed to do when you're there, and we were happy to oblige. The Christmas Market itself was a lot of fun, and we even found an official Christmas Market Beer.



Even more interesting were the sister city stalls, with some representatives from Atlanta. They had oreos, a jack daniels punch, and little bulldogs and yellow jackets to sell. ( you can assume I did not buy, or go talk football). We were headed off to see the Kaiserburg when we got distracted by by the beauty of St Sebalduskirche. We stopped in to take a gander and while there realized there was an english walking tour that we really should consider. Unfortunately at this point my trusty camera started to misbehave, and I started to imagine life with a new camera. While we were waiting for the walking tour of Nurnberg to start I tried changing the battery, which reset the camera date and made the order of my pictures wacky, but did lead to the camera actually functioning properly again. I wasn't sure whether or not to be dissapointed by that.
The tour Makes stops at a museum, a delicious looking friedp potato stand at the market,the Kaiserburg, a leper colony turned student dorm and the Albrecht Dürer haus. Along the tour we saw a really great looking bakery that W and I stopped into grabbed a coffee and dessert and ended up sitting at a table right next to some other people on the tour who had the same idea. We met back up with Dave and Kathy, and decided to take a tour of the Frauenkirche, which promised an overhead view of the christmas market. Unfortunately the tour was in German only, but we tolerated it for the Balcony trip payoff. We were not dissapointed by the views.

We were then ready to wander off and find a little dinner, and we stumbled upon the best find in town. Inside a door that seems too short for people and down a steep flight of stone steps is the most charming little restaurant perhaps in all of Bavaria. If you're in Nurnberg, you absolutely must visit Nassauer Keller. It would have been a great restaurant for the atmosphere alone, but then the food arrives. We found it quite accidently and were greatly rewarded for bravely climbing down the stairs. After dinner, we once again climbed on the train and made our way back to munich.
We climbed right into bed anxiously awaiting sleeping in a little the next day and just bumming around Munich. And here's this picture, for no other reason than I love churches at night.

Bavaria Day 3 Living out Fairy Tale Dreams

On our third day we rose early again and made our way over to the train station to make the 2 and a half hour ride from Munich to Fussen. We found some good seats on the train and settled in for the trip. We'd brought along some coffee, and packed our standard German breakfast for the ride. We even met a nice young couple to talk to, she was doing an internship at the Hofbrau (Jealous!!!!).
We were on our way to see to of Germany's most famous castles, Schloss Neuschwanstein and Schloss Hohenschwangau. We were working from the Lonely Planet Bavaria and the Black Forest Guide, and it walks you through the process pretty well. Get off the train, catch the bus to Schwangau, walk to the ticket booth buy your tickets to both castles, and enjoy. The tickets you buy are for a specific time, so we got ourselves a little cushion and stopped in for a little lunch at the Hotel Mueller nearby . We then marched up the hill to Hohenschangau and took some pictures, and then went in for our tour. Unfortunately they don't allow pictures inside, because the furnishings and decorations are as fancy as you might expect of monarchal spending gone wild. Especially impressive are the wedding gifts given to the castle's inhabitants, they are truly the answer to what do you give the couple who has everything. After the first tour, we wandered down and got in line for the horse drawn carriage ride to Neuschwanstein. We were afraid the timing would be a little tight, but the carriage ride only takes about to minutes, and it is a long way up hill for tired tourists. The best Karmic retribution of the day came when we watched people who were in line behind us practically run us over running up to the front seat of the carriage so they could sit in what they thought were the best seats, and they probably were nice seats, until the horses took a little bathroom break about half way through the journey. The finished parts of Neuchwanstein are absolutely amazing (it was never completed due to Ludwig's mysterious death during construction), and our tour group (70 strong) was big enough that lots of people were snapping pictures while the guide wasn't looking but I chose to take the rule abiding position and just enjoy the sights for myself. After the tour we had a drink at the cafe and sat down to watch the little movie about the life of Ludwig II. Unfortunately for us the power went out right when it was getting good, and it was closing time so we'll just be left to wonder. By the time we were done, the carriages had stopped running so we took the walk downhill on our own. That did give us time to shoot some pictures on the way down. We then made our way back to the bus stop where we had to wait for what seemed like forever on a night that was getting to be quite cold.We grabbed a bite to eat in Fussen at a restaurant not really worth mentioning and then made the train ride all the way back to Munich, there was some heavy napping along the way, and when we arrived back in munich we decided to try one of the many Kebab shops nearby. The food there was tasty, and just enough to fill us up for sleepy time. After this day we really could live happily ever after.

Bavaria, Day 2 Remembering a dark time for humanity

On our first day we'd paid a visit to the Aldi to buy some bread and some meat and cheese, so we could start day 2 with a delicious German breakfast. We were up early, and headed for Dachau to visit the concentration camp. The S-bahn ride takes about 25 minutes, and then you catch a bus out to the concentration camp. For such a serious activity, the bus was filled with english speaking tourists.

We got there just a touch too late to see the documentary movie in english, which I suspect probably contains the most sobering images. We spent the 2 Euro on the self directed audio guide and bundled up tight to walk around the groounds. I'd been to the Holocaust museum in St. Petersberg Fl, and one of the things I remembered most about that experience was they actually wanted you to reach out and touch the railcar they have on display because it adds an extra sense to your experience. As much as was physically possible I reached out and tried to touch the items on display. In the warmth of a St. Pete summer day, it's hard to imagine the stark coldness of a winter day in a concentration camp at Dachau. From the creaky opening of the wrought iron gate, to the harshness of the cement walls, there are not enough adjectives to describe the misery that must have been felt here. Hardest of all to imagine was the roll call on the wide open parade ground. The prisoner uniform didn't look nearly warm enough to make survival possible on this windsept open field where prisoners were forced to stand at attention rain or shine to be counted. The inscription on the gate says work will set you free, a propaganda play since Dachau was supoosed to be a re-education camp not a death camp or source of civilian labor. As you walk through the museum, you can't help but feel nauseated by the way people were denied their humanity for no apparent reason other than their place of birth or disagreement with Nazi ideals, not that any reason is ever good enough to treat any other human being like anything less than fully human. The tour includes a thorough museum, a reconstucted baracks where regular prisoners stayed and the original isolation cells. The Long dark hallway of the isolation cells still gives me a chill to relive, I can't imagine a worse place to live in constant fear. The final piece of our tour was the cremation/gas chamber area where what looked like a shower turned into death. The numbness you feel here is almost unbearable. We finally made our way back out tot the front gate, and took the bus back to the train station, ready to eat and ready to start enjoying the trip again. We just sort of started walking through downtown looking for a restauarant and discovered a cozy little place called Gasthaus Drei Rosen

It's off the beaten tourist path, but does have an english menu and the most wonderful Bavarian food. W had a ribeye with herbed butter that I'd still like to go back and get 3 more of, and I had the Allgäuer Käsetopf, Schweinelendchen auf Käsespätzle mit Rahmschwammerlund gemischtem Salat, Which is a pork chop seved over a pot of cheesy german noodles with a mixed green salad that was absolutely amazing. Have yourself a Lowenbau Dunkel (Dark) while you're here, and it will easily wash away some of your sadness. From there we had a few minutes to try to walk up the hill to get to Schloss Dachau before it closed. We didn't make it in time, but the Hofgarten behind it was still open, so we stopped to take some pictures and then spent some quality time at the Dachau Kristkindlemarkt and enjoyed a Gluhwein and watched some little angels parade in to open up the market. We grabbed the bus back to the train station and made our way back to Munich from there. After a brief respite at the hotel, we made our way out to the Spatenhaus for dinner. We ate more typical Bavarian fare, and snuck out with a few of the pretzels that they start you with (a to-go box is not a very common site in Germany). We arrived not really all that hungry and struggled mightily to put down a whole meal.

We then made our way to once again to the tollwood festival for a gluhwein and a dessert crepe I managed to get us a little lost on the U-bahn on the way there because there's a Theresenwiese station and a Theresenstasse station. After our gluhwein and dessert, we took the little stroll back to the hotel, we had another early morning to face the next day.

Yikes, a whole month!

My My.Yahoo page always shows me how long it's been since my last post, and I was a little alarmed this week to see that it had been a whole month since I'd stopped in to post. Trust me, you don't want to read about how I spent 12 hours in my cube being a spreadsheet jockey, that enriches neither your life or mine. So, what have I been up to lately? Well,I got myself nice and dressed up for Halloween, going as scrooge,trailed closely by 3 co-workers who were dressed as ghosts of products past, present and future. It was well received around the office, and landed my team and I the best group prize in our little competition. That got us all lunch at the San Francisco Soup Company, the place where most of my company's executives eat. Despite how busy we'd been at the office I still found time to get out and vote on November 4th, and for the most part I was pretty pleased with the results. In some movie I saw long ago, there was a fellow lightly complected brother who said that "one day light skinned brotha's would be back in style". (This was in those days where dark skinned bald headed guys with goatees were all the rage) It would appear at least for now, that the long promised day has arrived. I say I was pretty pleased because somehow a gay marriage ban made it through all the way on to the California state constitution. The fact is that a vote for yes means that you not only disagree with gay marriage, but that you think it's the state's responsibility to make sure that two people who love each other can't make a formal statement of that. I think those ought to be separate issues. I'm pretty sure we haven't heard the last one though. It's likely to be tied up in court forever, and even more likely to re-appear on a ballot at a later date. Oddly enough the gay Marriage ban passed, but parental notification for abortions did not. So it's quite possible that people got out and voted for one and not the other? Very strange indeed. I somehow managed to get older last week too, celebrating in style with friends at a restaurant I'm suddenly very passionate about: Betelnut in San Francisco. I'd heard good things about it, and it completely lived up to the hype. I don't know that I've ever had better fish than the Oven smoked seabass with ginger-cucumber namasu (order two, they're small, and you'll want more). We also had the Szeshuan style green beans that are even better than the famously delicious green beans that we had at the little restaurant across the street from the Lido Hilton Beijing. On Friday, we had a chance to check out a place on our side of the bay, Bellanico. Wine list: Great, Food: Awesome, Seating: a little tight, and kind of noisy, but really a cool neighborhood place. Desserts: Amazing. Over the weekend I watched another disappointing Saturday for my beloved Auburn Tigers.

Shrimp on a reef
Originally uploaded by jrherron

It's been a long season an has the potential to get much better or much worse with Alabama on the schedule in a week and a half. Today's awesome news, I might actually have a picture published in an online travel guide called Schmap. Needless to say I'm stoked. I'm "on the short list" so it's not final yet, but it's one of the few times someone who doesn't know me has actually thought my photography was worth while. It almost makes me a professional travel photographer (excluding the getting paid part...minor detail).

Day 11, Crossing the Tasman

Finally the time had arrived to bid farewell to New Zealand, we packed up all of our stuff got in the car once again and made our way downtown. We had a very delicious final lunch at Fergberger (site works poorly in some browsers) . I had the little lamby and wished I had discovered it earlier in the trip, I might have eaten one every day. Yes, that does mean I held a baby lamb one day and had a lamb burger the next, but... circle of life. Then we reluctantly went to the airport, and bid adieu to our faithful rental car companion. Be warned that rental car dropoff is a long hike from the terminal across an unpaved lot, not easy to manage with lots of overstuffed luggage. We were disheartened to hear about a canceled Qantas flight as soon as we got on the terminal, but fortunately it was an Auckland flight. When we checked in they asked us to wait nearby, a familiar tactic if they're not sure you're going to get on. The weather was lousy, and they frequently weight restrict the flight, so it was a little touch and go. Eventually they did give us 2 exit row seats, so we were glad, and hustled through the terminal out to the plane. The flight from Queenstown to Sydney is only 3 hours, but we still got surved a hot lunch (we both went with the lamb casserole) and got a little bottle of wine that we really enjoyed. (there was no charge for the wine either). The dessert was the best part, because just when I thought we weren't getting a dessert, out comes a flight attendant with a Streets Magnum Chocolate Ice Cream bar for everyone. Best. coach. class. dessert. Ever. We arrived in Sydney after watching Get Smart, and needed to figure out some way to get to our hotel. We also had to bypass the very tempting tax/duty free store that you are forced to walk through. We found a shuttle service to hotels for only $13AU per person, which seemed much easier than navigating the train and then walking with our bags, or overpaying for a cab. We set ourselves up at the Sydney Harbour Marriott Hotel at Circular Quay. Our room was awesome, and we got a view of the harbour and opera house without having to spend an arm and a leg. After our somewhat stressful day at the airport, and 2 weeks of hustling we were ready to spoil ourselves a little bit so we stayed in to eat at the hotel. The Seafood buffet on the weekends is incredible. We splurged on the buffet our last trip to Sydney when we stayed at the Hyde Park Marriott, so we knew it would be good, but this was above and beyond even that. There was tons of fresh sashimi, balmain bugs as far as the eye could see, crab legs, and lots of lots and other choices. There was even someone preparing noodle dishes to order. The range of Desserts available was like nothing I have ever seen. But those are not even the most important features. The real maker of this deal was the wine buffet. $24AU for pour your own from a selection of 4 local reds 4 local whites and a sparkling. Between wine and sashimi, we more than got our money's worth. Stuffed, we rolled ourselves back to our room and crashed.

Day 9, Losing My Doubts

On day nine, our morning started with a 6:45 a.m. pick up at our hotel for the Real Journeys Doubtful Sound Nature cruise. We had a few anxious moments when the cab didn't show up early like we'd been told to expect, but eventually it did and dropped us off at the Real Journeys office downtown. There we jumped on a nice moderately comfy bus (the seats are a little close together and aren't necessary wide enough for two full sized people, but the glass roof is really cool). That bus was headed for Te Anau, with another Japanese tour group headed for Milford, but was stopping to drop us off so we could head south. W and I both grabbed a nap when the road got pretty steep and curvy and woke up just in time for our drop off. We climbed on board a smaller less comfortable bus, and it took us and 8 others to the dock at Manapouri. Once there we gathered up our picnic lunch from the cafe, had a cup of coffee for good measure, and then climbed abourd our first boat for the day. Lake Manapouri is beautiful, and the hour and a half it takes to get to the other side is time well spent. I spent most of the time climbing up on the upper deck to take pictures until I was too cold, then back downstairs to thaw out or until something looked picture worthy. Once across the lake you stop at a small visitors center that tells you about how the hydroelectric power station works, and then you climb on board a third bus that takes you across Wilmot Pass to Deep Cove, the entrance to Doubtful Sound. The Doubtful sound cruise is non-stop beautiful, and is worth every penny you spend on the trip, and every second you have to spend on the road to get there. Occasionally they'll stop the boat to get a close look at something, especially if there are seals or penguins about. The water was always calm because of how deep in the valley you are, and our picnic lunch was actually quite good. After exploring a few arms of the sound, and traveling all the way out just far enough to see the rolling Tasman Sea, you head back towards deep cove, and once again on to your bus. The bus then takes you deep inside the Hydroelectric plant where you get a short tour, but it's mostly cool because of how far underground you get. Plus the bus driver has to turn the bus around at the bottom of the tunnel, which was a pretty impressive move. After the plant, it's back over to lake Manapouri for a run back across it, and only one big bus on the way back to Queenstown. You get back about 7:00, and are ready for some dinner. We grabbed a little internet time, and then went over to Brazz to find some dinner. Brazz has a cool mix of really huge dinner plates, thin crust pizzas, and tapas, so we went with two of the tapas and a pizza. We started with lamb backstraps with feta, and fried camembert nuggets with a cranberry dip that were out of this world. Our pizza was delicious too, and turned out to be just the right amount of food. From there we got ourselves into the Minus 5, where I strongly recommend the polar blair drink which I'm trying desperately to remember what it contained. Tired from a full day, back to the hotel we went, and promptly crashed.

Day 6 , On to the south island

The hard thing about doing really important stuff when you're on vacation is that you wake up way too often wondering if you've accidentally overslept. So began day six, where it was absolutely vital that we make the 9:00 a.m. inter-islander ferry to the south island. We knew it was a short trip from the hotel, but got up early so there would be nothing left to chance. I think we were the 3rd car in line. The Ferry ride is an extremely scenic 3 hour trip around the tip of the south island, across the cook straight through Picton Harbour an in to Picton. It was really cool to watch all of the freight and trucks get loaded on to the ferry. (before the cars) and then we cautiously drove on to the boat ourselves. I'd read stern warnings about taking a Dramamine before you get on, because it could be interesting, but our passage was quite smooth.
We grabbed some breakfast on board, and even had a beer to help make the trip a little easier. The views from the upper deck were worth the price of admission, bu there's a movie theater, a business class style deck (we decided it wasn't worth the upcharge this time) multiple places to eat or drink and even some live music. The good news about being early to the ferry is you're first off too, so we were quickly on our way to the Picton i-site. We needed a place to stay in christchurch, an a nice lady there found us a place recommended a place to eat along the way, and told us about Ohau bay seal colony. I wish I'd gotten her name, because she was absolutely money on recommendations. We took the scenic coastal road carefully eyeballing every sign, and wishing longingly that we had time to stop at the hundreds of wineries we passed (next time...) Just when we were giving up hope of seeing seals in the wild, along comes a sign that was a good candidate, and then another. Our two stops were the seal colony, and a scenic waterfall walk. We went too far to catch the scenic walk, so we decided we'd go back to it after dropping in on the seal colony. They were mostly lazily sunning themselves on the rocks and occasionally moving around, having little seal fights, and making some noise. Having what we thought was our fill of seals we went back to the must see scenic walk, and it was 10 minutes as advertised. We got to the waterfall at the end, and found a young seal swimming in the pool below it. I got down on a rock, and he didn't take to kindly to that and promptly chase me off of it. Then three more of his friends came waddling up the creek to play too. Eventually we made our way to kaikoura to the third place our i-site lady recommended the Kaikoura Food Company. You absolutely must make this stop if you're on the road. Make sure you try the rum raisin fudge too. We then made our way to Christchurch and checked ourselves into the Lattimer Hotel. We were excited that it had laundry facilities, and the concierge recommended a restaurant for us. We never made it to the recommendation, after driving in too many circles on the one way road we finally just parked someplace and walked until we found a menu that looked good. It was a little late, and apparently the staff at Viaduct decided to spend all their time on their closing duties rather than help us. I'd totally bash the place, but the food was actually really really great. I had some farm raised venison that was awesome. We had a beer at the hotel bar, and chatted for a while with the Irish bar tender, he wanted to talk US politics and immigration policy too. We then settled into our spacious room for the night with plenty to do the next day.